Konon Borisovich Berman-Yurin (aka Hans Stauer, Alexander Fomich) (1901 – 25 August 1936) was a Latvian

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

who was a state witness in the trial of

Grigory Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, . Transliterated ''Grigorii Evseevich Zinov'ev'' according to the Library of Congress system. (born Hirsch Apfelbaum, – 25 August 1936), known also under the name Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (russian: Ов ...

Background

Berman-Yurin was born in

Courland Courland (; lv, Kurzeme; liv, Kurāmō; German and Scandinavian languages: ''Kurland''; la, Curonia/; russian: Курляндия; Estonian: ''Kuramaa''; lt, Kuršas; pl, Kurlandia) is one of the Historical Latvian Lands in western Latvia ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

. He was a member of the

Communist Party of Latvia The Communist Party of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Komunistiskā partija, LKP) was a political party in Latvia. History Latvian Social-Democracy prior to 1919 The party was founded at a congress in June 1904. Initially the party was known as the Latvia ...

from 1921 to 1924. In 1923, he left Latvia for

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

without obtaining the permission of the party, who expelled him as a deserter. However he did join the

German Communist Party The German Communist Party (german: Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, ) is a communist party in Germany. The DKP supports left positions and was an observer member of the European Left. At the end of February 2016 it left the European party. His ...

, where he joined the regional directorate involved in propaganda and organisational work. Following the

Nazi seizure of power Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...

in Germany, Berman-Yurin fled to the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...

getting a job for the Moscow newspaper ''Za industrializatsiiu''. He was arrested on 22 May 1936 and was one of the accused in the

Trial of the Sixteen The Trial of the Sixteen ( pl, Proces szesnastu) was a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet authorities in Moscow in 1945. All captives were kidnapped by the NKVD secret service and falsely accused of var ...

, one of the Moscow

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so ...

s. He implicated himself in a "confession" claiming that he had met with

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

in 1932 where they planned to assassinate

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

. He claimed that Trotsky had instructed him that "if possible, the terroristic act must be carried out at a Plenum or Congress of the Comintern, so that the shot at Stalin should ring out in a large assembly. This would have a tremendous repercussion far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union and call forth a mass movement throughout the world. This would have a world-historical political significance". After being convicted and sentenced to death, Berman-Yurin was shot on 25 August 1936.

References

1901 births 1936 deaths Communist Party of Germany politicians Trial of the Sixteen (Great Purge) Communist Party of Latvia politicians Victims of Red Terror in Soviet Russia {{Latvia-bio-stub